


In the end, this is better

by Bento



Category: Carmilla - All Media Types, Carmilla - Fandom
Genre: F/F, Suicide
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-06-25
Updated: 2016-06-25
Packaged: 2018-07-18 05:41:53
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,584
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7301716
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Bento/pseuds/Bento
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Laura comes home to find Carmilla, but not how she expected (no smut).</p>
            </blockquote>





	In the end, this is better

**Author's Note:**

> Okay, so this is the first I've posted in a while. This is just something I had to get out of my system, I suppose.  
> I know it's not great or anything, or even good, but I've been a bit on the dry side lately and haven't really been able to write anything. I'm hoping this is what will get me back on the horse, so to speak.  
> Anyway, new work happened. Enjoy(?)
> 
> -Bento out

Laura came home from her job at Walmart. It was the only place in town that had been willing to hire her after her two year stay at the psych ward. When she opened the front door, she got a funny feeling, as if something was deeply wrong. The air felt different and there was a strange smell in the house, something she couldn’t quite explain. It was something she had never experienced in her 27-year long life.  
She began walking around the house, looking for Carmilla and the source of the smell, praying there wasn’t some sort of a leak or fungus or something anywhere.

_Hello? Carm? Are you home?_

Laura got increasingly worried as she moved through the rooms downstairs and found no sign of Carmilla or the source of the smell.  
After she had searched through the entire ground floor (including the cupboard under the stairs), she went upstairs, thinking maybe Carmilla was having a bath or a nap.  
When she saw that she wasn’t in the bed, she knocked on the bathroom door, once again calling for the other woman,

_Carm? Are you in here?_

Laura knocked once more, a little harder this time. The door slid open a few inches. Laura had an awful feeling on her stomach as she opened the door fully and stepped in to the bathroom. What she saw there made her scream at the top of her lungs. In the bathtub she saw a lifeless Carmilla, soaking in the lukewarm water. Four empty bottles of wine were laying around the tub. She looked around, on the sink she saw an empty bottle of pills. _Shit_. Laura immediately knew what had happened. She quickly called for an ambulance, screaming and trying to explain the situation to the woman on the other end. As soon as the woman told her an ambulance was on the way, Laura tossed the phone away and began dragging a naked Carmilla out of the tub. She wanted to dress her. She didn’t want anyone to see her like that, naked and vulnerable. At least she wanted her to have some dignity when she was being taken away.

Taken away. Laura began to cry. Tears were streaming down her face and she was sobbing loudly as she found a hoodie and a pair of sweatpants. She struggled with getting the clothes on the limp woman, but she managed. Just as she finished pulling up the pants, she heard the doorbell ring. She yelled that the door was open, not wanting to leave Carmilla alone for even a moment.

As the ambulance personnel tried to revive Carmilla, and then lifted her into a body bag before they placed her in the car, Laura could do nothing but stand and watch. The men had been asking her a lot of questions as they had been trying to get her back to life, but Laura hadn’t heard a word they said. She had just been staring, trying to understand what was happening, and trying to understand that Carmilla was gone for ever.

After the ambulance had left, Laura went about, beginning to clean up the bottles and emptying the tub. On the mirror, she saw a piece of paper taped to it she hadn’t noticed earlier. She picked it down and went to sit in the tub. She realised it would be a final note from the woman she loved, she couldn’t think of a place more appropriate to read it, than in the place where she had drawn her last breath.

She felt the remaining drops of water soaking through her clothes as she sat down, but she couldn’t have cared less about it.  
Laura unfolded the paper and began to read,

_To my beloved Laura,_

_If you are reading this, it means that I’m gone. I know that my departure won’t make any sense to you, not yet, anyway, and that’s why I’m writing you this letter. You deserve to know the truth about why I left._

_See, I have so much darkness inside of me, so many things I’ve never told anyone, not even the doctors in this place. There are things inside of me, urges and thoughts, that I can’t even begin to explain, things that have been haunting me for years._

_Do you remember that time I told you about when I fell out of that window when I was 13? It was my birthday party and one of the kids there pushed me out of the window of our apartment. I fell down eleven floors and broke both my legs and arms, as well as my neck and back in several places. I was in a wheelchair for almost two years, I had to learn how to walk again and how to be on my own. Do you remember I told you that? That is when the darkness began. I shouldn’t have survived that fall. And ever since, all I’ve been able to think of, when I think back at it, is that I don’t understand why I survived. I should have died that day. Medically speaking, there is no way I should have survived. At the hospital, they all called me a miracle, all the surgeons and nurses and everyone. The ambulance personnel had expected to be scraping me off the ground, they had brought a body bag for me and everything. Ever since that day, I’ve had some questions running through my head. How did I survive? Why did I survive? Did I really survive? Is it possible I didn’t? That I’m dead, but I somehow just kept going about as normal? Am I in a coma? Am I still laying on the ground, drifting between life and death?_

_Laura, I don’t know if I’m dead or alive anymore, I haven’t been sure since the fall. And it’s killing me inside. It makes my head scream and wail in frustration. I’ve been trying to live with this for years now, trying to make it through each and every day. I would do everything I could to prove to myself that everything was real, I would make myself bleed and hurt, I would punch walls and get wasted. I took unnecessary risks like driving too fast and dangerously, walk out in the dangerous parts of town (you know, the parts where people would get robbed for small change). I did all kinds of drugs, just for the hell of it. I mean, if I were dead or in a coma already, it wouldn’t do any harm anyway, right? I stopped caring about my own safety and health._

_All I want, Laura, is for all this hurting and insanity inside me to end. I can’t go on like this._

_But I want you to know this, you made me better. You almost made me want to carry on. You almost made the pain inside me go away. You almost made me feel sane again.  
I know there is a lot of almost, but that is closer than I ever thought I would get after all this began. I never thought anyone could ever care so much for me and make me feel almost okay again. I saw myself as broken, something that could never be fixed again, but you came along, and you took a roll of scotch tape and taped me back together. Tape doesn’t really fix anything in the long run, but it was as good as it gets. I wasn’t just a bunch of broken pieces anymore, I was taped back together. And for that, I will be eternally grateful to you._

_I know that what I’m doing will hurt you a great deal, and for that I am truly sorry. The last thing I wish, is to put you through this kind of pain, but I can’t carry on anymore. This is the only solution for me, I don’t know what else to do, anymore. I wish I could carry on for you, that I could be stronger and still be here for you, but I can’t. I am really sorry._

_Now you don’t have to worry about me anymore. I’ll be in a better place, I’ll be happier. In the end, this is better._

_But please, don’t let my departure break you, don’t let your life stop and become a dark place. You deserve so much better than that. You deserve to be happy and live your life to the fullest. So please, take this event, and let your life become better. Remember me, but don’t let me become the end of you. Live on, Laura, be happy without me. Don’t have any restraints, live your life to the fullest._

_Be happy, my love. Be happy, and live a better life without me. This is the better choice._

_I will always love you, Laura. Always and forever._

_I’ll be waiting for you in our own little piece of heaven._

_Always and forever,  
Carmilla_

Laura read the letter over and over countless times, trying to understand the words. She felt as she couldn’t breathe. She curled up in the tub, crying and gasping for breath. It felt as if her heart had been ripped out of her chest. She felt so empty and dark. She didn’t know how she would carry on anymore. She felt so broken and alone in the world.  
The pain was numbing, she couldn’t move, even if she had remembered how to move her legs.

_Carmilla was gone. Gone forever_


End file.
